Symposium: Family caregiving to dependent older adults: Stress, appraisal, and coping.

Articles presented in this 1987 APA symposium adopt a stress, appraisal, and coping framework for conceptualizing the experience of family caregiving. Each article emphasizes 2 themes: (a) caregivers' adaptation to the chronic demands of in-home caregiving and (b) factors that mediate the relationship between caregiving stress and caregiver's adaptation. The articles presented in this symposium illustrate both the utility of this theoretical approach to studying caregiving stress and the difficulty inherent in its use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specificity of depressotypic cognitions in clinical depression.

Evaluated 2 measures of cognition in depression, an automatic thoughts questionnaire (ATQ) and the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale (DAS), for sensitivity and specificity in a series of diagnostically distinct clinical outpatients. The 69 Ss were divided among the following diagnoses: bipolar disorder, depressed; unipolar disorder, depressed; substance abuse, depressed; substance abuse disorder; and general psychiatric disorder. Findings show that both measures covaried with syndrome rather than nosological depression, and the ATQ, but not the DAS, evidenced good specificity. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A quantitative assessment of changes in work activities resulting from computer-assisted design

In an effort to understand how computer-assisted design (CAD) can be optimized in an organizational setting, perceptions and attitudes of CAD users about their jobs and workplace are compared with those of non-users. Results indicate that the implementation of CAD may not result in the expected benefits if CAD is not appropriately managed. Job unpredictability, job autonomy, and job interdependence are three areas in particular needing management attention if CAD benefits are to be achieved.     

Dynamics of childhood and adolescent personality traits and adolescent drug use.

Examined the relative impact of childhood and adolescent personality/behavioral attributes on the adolescent's stage of drug use. Mothers of 356 youngsters were interviewed concerning their child's personality, behavior, development and childrearing techniques, family structure, family health, and demographics when the child was 5–20 yrs of age (Time 1 [T1]) and again when the child was 13–18 yrs old (Time 2 [T2]). Adolescents also completed a self-report questionnaire concerning their personalities, behavior, and drug use at T2. As hypothesized, findings support a mediational model as best depicting the interrelation of the domains of childhood and adolescent personality and stage of drug use. Childhood personality attributes were related to adolescent personality attributes, which in turn were related to adolescents' stage of drug use. Across-time personality correlations suggested that substantial continuity exists in personality traits. However, there was also some evidence for the malleability of these traits. Results suggest the positive effects of protective (i.e., nondrug-conducive) personality traits in children can be weakened by the presence of risk factors during adolescence, leading to higher T2 drug stage, and that the negative impact of childhood risk personality traits can be ameliorated by protective personality traits during adolescence, resulting in lower drug stage. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Turing degree of the inherent ambiguity problem for context-free languages

The inherent ambiguity question for context-free languages is shown to be in the Turing degree of unsolvability O”. The method used is to show that the inherent ambiguity question is equivalent to the finiteness question for r.e. sets which is in degree O”. The proof associates a context-free language with each Turing machine. The language has a natural closed-form definition in terms of the Turing machine. The associated language is inherently ambiguous precisely iof the Turing machine accepts an infinite set.     

Fathers' and mothers' responses to the faces and cries of normal and premature infants.

32 White, middle-class couples with 5-mo-old infants were shown videotapes depicting infants who were, in turn quiescent, crying, and quiescent. Half of the parents viewed a normal (full-term) newborn, while half viewed a premature infant. Sound tracks were dubbed so that half of the normal and half of the premature infants "emitted" the cry of a normal infant, while the other half emitted the cry of a premature infant. Physiological (heart rate, diastolic blood pressure, and skin conductance) and self-report measures (a mood adjective checklist and an infant temperament measure) were gathered. The cry of the premature infant elicited greater autonomic arousal and was perceived as more aversive than the cry of the normal infant. The effect was especially pronounced when the premature cry was paired with the face of a premature infant. There were few sex differences. Results are discussed with reference to demographic evidence indicating that prematurely born children are "at risk" for child abuse. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Use of Student Portfolios in Engineering Instruction

Student portfolios are listed as a possible means of assessment under the basic level accreditation criteria for ABET “Engineering Criteria 2000.” Efforts to initiate student portfolios in engineering instruction have been reported anecdotally in the literature, but a formal study on student portfolios in engineering has not been presented. We assigned student portfolios to freshmen and seniors taking biological engineering core courses containing a significant design component, and evaluated their effectiveness based on exit surveys, course evaluations, and instructor reflection. Portfolios were used to initiate student-centered learning, and to address the assessment issues raised by ABET. Results showed that 78% of seniors and 80% of freshmen believed that the use of student portfolios enhanced their learning. Among the freshmen, 69% of those students who were identified as sensing types by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator found portfolios useful, while 87% of the intuitive types found them useful. In this paper, the methodologies for using portfolios are detailed, the results of applying the portfolio method are presented, and implications and recommendations are discussed.     

Optical properties of undoped and oxygen doped CuCl films on silicon substrates

Semiconductor photonic emitters operating in the UV range remain an elusive goal. Attention has focused mainly on III-Nitrides. However, a large lattice constant difference between the III-Nitride layers and the compatible substrates results in high densities of misfit dislocations and consequently the device performance is adversely affected. An alternative novel material system, γ-CuCl on silicon, is investigated. Properties of the exciton luminescence from vacuum deposited undoped and oxygen doped CuCl films on Si are studied using temperature dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy. Oxygen doping degrades the optical quality and introduces an intermediate state leading to negative thermal quenching behaviour.     

Day hospital and residential addiction treatment: Randomized and nonrandomized managed care clients.

Male and female managed care clients randomized to day hospital (n=154) or community residential treatment (n=139) were compared on substance use outcomes at 6 and 12 months. To address possible bias in naturalistic studies, outcomes were also examined for clients who self-selected day hospital (n=321) and for clients excluded from randomization and directed to residential treatment because of high environmental risk (n=82). American Society of Addiction Medicine criteria defined study and randomization eligibility. More than 50% of followed clients reported past-30-day abstinence at follow-ups (unadjusted rates, not significant between groups). Despite differing baseline severities, randomized, self-selecting, and directed clients displayed similar abstinence outcomes in multivariate longitudinal models. Index treatment days and 12-step attendance were associated with abstinence (p